DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang (WO 2020083051 A1) in view of RAVICHANDRAN (US 20200186411 A1).
For claim 1, Wang discloses a method of end-to-end (E2E) network resource planning in a cellular network (p13, 3rd para “In a set of end-to-end network (such as 2/3 / 4G network) system”), the method comprising:
identifying a plurality of network elements in the cellular network (p12, last para “… obtaining the CPU utilization rate of the virtualized network element in the network element pool; …”; in order to obtain the CPU utilization rate of a network element, the network element must be identified);
identifying a capacity metric associated with each network element of the plurality of network elements (p12, last para “… obtaining the CPU utilization rate of the virtualized network element in the network element pool; …”; note that CPU utilization rate is a capacity metric);
determining a threshold criterion of the capacity metric for each network element of the plurality of network elements (p12, last para “… if the CPU utilization rate of the virtualized network element exceeds a preset threshold, the Set up an elastic strategy for expansion. …”).
Wang is silent but RAVICHANDRAN, in the same field of endeavor of network communication, discloses:
predicting a timepoint of a breakage associated with each network element of the plurality of network elements, wherein the breakage occurs responsive to a capacity metric satisfies a corresponding threshold criterion (“[0088] The FPPM 209 may perform at least following functions: [0089] a) predict/detect fault or performance issue in one or more service(s)/slice(s) using pre-provisioned inputs (FPP-RULES) that may be adapted by the EAAM 205 (ADAPT-FPP-RULES); …”; or [0173] “… prediction of fault or performance issues from a CF, and so forth.”, or “[0174] … end-to-end latency within the network shows an increasing trend, and is predicted to cross the threshold for maximum latency in next 2 observation intervals …”). OOSA would have been motivated to replace “elastic strategy” by Wang with “prediction of fault or performance issues” by RAVICHANDRAN above to yield a predictable result of predicting network fault/performance issues.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine Wang and RAVICHANDRAN for the benefit of predicting network fault/performance issues ([0173] of RAVICHANDRAN).
Independent claim 9 is rejected because it is a generic computing system that performs the method of claim 1 and has the subject matter as claim 1.
Independent claim 17 is rejected because it is a non-transitory, computer-readable storage media encoded instructions for performing the method of claim 1 and has the subject matter as claim 1.
As to claims 2 and 10, Wang in view of RAVICHANDRAN discloses claims 1 and 9, Wang further discloses: wherein the plurality of network elements comprise at least one of: a first set of network elements in one or more base stations, a second set of network elements in one or more transports, a third set of network elements in one or more core networks, or a fourth set of network elements in one or more cloud-computing platforms (p2, last para “… Taking the 2/3 / 4G wireless access network element selecting the core network element as an example, in the mobile switching center (Mobile Switching Centre, MSC) / service General Packet Radio Service (General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) support node (Serving GPRS In the case of Support Node, SGSN) / Mobile Management Entity (Mobile Management Entity, MME) group pool, the Radio Network Controller (RNC) selects the MSC / SGSN / MME serving it in the pool. …”).
As to claims 3 and 11, Wang in view of RAVICHANDRAN discloses claims 2 and 10, Wang further discloses: wherein the first set of network elements comprises at least one of: a radio unit (RU), a distributed unit (DU), a control plane centralized unit (CU-CP), a user plane centralized unit (CU-UP), a sector, or a cell site, wherein the second set of network elements comprises at least one of: an interface, or a communication link, wherein the third set of network elements comprises at least one network function, and wherein the fourth set of network elements comprises at least one cloud-native network function (p2, last para “… Taking the MSC group pool as an example, when a terminal enters the coverage area of a certain MSC pool, the radio access network (Radio Access Network, RAN) node will randomly allocate the terminal location update request to the pool in accordance with the principle of load balancing For a certain MSC, this MSC completes the location update process and subsequent traffic services. …”; note that it is well known in the art that RAN comprises DU-CP and CU-CP, and Examiner takes an official notice on this statement. For example, US 20200044943 A1 discloses it in [0088] “… RAN-CP (RAN control plane) including CU-CP (CU control plane) and DU-CP (DU control plane), …”).
As to claims 4, 12 and 19, Wang in view of RAVICHANDRAN discloses claims 1, 9 and 17, RAVICHANDRAN further discloses: wherein the capacity metric comprises at least one of: a counter, or a key performance indicator (KPI) (“[0003] … a rule to allocate an additional virtual machine (VM) to a network function may not work if sufficient resources are not available in the specific location, thereby leading to increased latency affecting key performance indicators (KPIs) of services, etc. …”). The motivation of combining Wang and RAVICHANDRAN is the same as stated in the parent claims.
As to claims 5 and 13, Wang in view of RAVICHANDRAN discloses claims 1 and 9, RAVICHANDRAN further discloses: wherein the threshold criterion of the capacity metric for each network element of the plurality of network elements is determined using historical data or one or more capacity limits of the network element (“[0050] when TARGET-SLA-KPI for a slice is provisioned, SLICE-EVENTS-PARAMS-TABLE may be updated appropriately by the PPM 201 based on learning from historical data” in view of the parent claims). The motivation of combining Wang and RAVICHANDRAN is the same as stated in the parent claims.
As to claims 6 and 14, Wang in view of RAVICHANDRAN discloses claims 1 and 9, Wang further discloses: wherein the timepoint of the breakage associated with each network element of the plurality of network elements is predicted according to historical data (“[0050] when TARGET-SLA-KPI for a slice is provisioned, SLICE-EVENTS-PARAMS-TABLE may be updated appropriately by the PPM 201 based on learning from historical data” in view of the parent claims). The motivation of combining Wang and RAVICHANDRAN is the same as stated in the parent claims.
As to claim 7, Wang in view of RAVICHANDRAN discloses claims 1, Wang further discloses:
wherein the timepoint of the breakage associated with each network element of the plurality of network elements is predicted using a machine learning model (“[0053] j) cognitive inputs for a CF to perform effectively (CF-ANALYS-INPUTS-TABLE), which may be for example, if trend of latency in access network data is determined by a CF using machine learning techniques, …”).
As to claim 8, Wang in view of RAVICHANDRAN discloses claims 1, Wang further discloses:
taking an action regarding a predicted timepoint of the breakage, wherein the action comprises adjusting at least one of: a capacity of memory, a capacity of storage, a number of central processing unit (CPU), or a bandwidth of network interconnection (p5, 2nd para from the bottom (“… network device is the first network element and includes: a processor; a memory and a transceiver connected to the processor; …”; or p12, last para “… obtaining the CPU utilization rate of the virtualized network element in the network element pool; …”; not that “CPU utilization rate” is associated with number of CPUs).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JIANYE WU whose telephone number is (571)270-1665. The examiner can normally be reached M-TH 8am-6pm.
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/JIANYE WU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462
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